The Virgin Islands Department of Education (VIDE) recognizes that strong family engagement is essential to fostering a positive learning environment and driving student success. As part of its family engagement initiative, VIDE held two in-person full-day parent retreats—one in St. Croix in February, and one in St. Thomas in March. Titled, When Parents Grow, Children Blossom, these parent retreats were territory–wide gatherings designed to nurture parents and caregivers and give them time to fill their own cups. Sessions also aimed to empower parents and caregivers with information, tools and resources to strengthen their capacity to support their child[ren] in school.
Building Stronger Partnerships
One of VIDE’s goals is to establish a two-way flow of communication between VIDE and families through which parents can gain awareness of their rights as caregivers and obtain available resources. These retreats were intentionally planned to enhance the connections between families, schools and VIDE and also to build parents’ trust in VIDE’s reliability, ability and intention. During the retreats, VIDE staff encouraged participants to call them by their first names, helping to create a relaxed atmosphere that fostered collaboration and open communication. Presenters spoke honestly about their own parenting challenges, and many VIDE staff shared their phone numbers for parents to reach out for more information.
Why Engagement Matters
Research shows that family engagement is one of the strongest predictors of student academic success (1). Students with engaged families have better attendance, more positive behaviors, stronger social-emotional development (2), and increased academic outcomes (3, 4). Family engagement helps students to feel supported; a critical enabling condition for a positive learning environment (5). Families and schools also benefit from these partnerships. Meaningful collaboration improves family attitudes toward school; increases families’ understanding of their child(ren)’s educational needs and how they can help address those needs; and improves standardized test scores, standards attainment, and school safety (6). VIDE seeks to support and enhance the connections between USVI families and schools through a systems-level family engagement approach. This includes creating meaningful and interactive events as well as implementing policies and practices to ensure families feel safe and valued.
One parent retreat attendee highlighted the importance of these retreats and stated, “We want to see a culture where our next generation is supported and they’re able to be the best that they can be in their fields and in their character and morality.”
Creating a Space to Connect and Grow
With the retreat theme, “Bloom Where You Are Planted: Cultivating Parent Power,” VIDE sought to create a space for parents that was safe, welcoming, and respectful while also rooted in local expertise, culture and community voice. The events kicked off with a musical/drama performance, and a welcome from VIDE leaders, including Commissioner Dr. Dionne Wells-Hedrington and Dynel Lang, Director of Parental and Community Engagement & Positive School Climate.
Dr. Vincentia Paul-Constantin, Executive Director of Beautiful Dreamers Behavioral & Educational Center, delivered the keynote presentation, “Nurturing Ourselves to Support Our Children,” utilizing guided reflection and interactive activities to highlight the essential role parents play in helping children thrive. This powerful session helped set a compassionate and supportive tone for the day. Additional sessions covered topics such as building strong parent-teacher partnerships, understanding VIDE’s parent and community engagement strategy and technology tools, and strengthening home and school connections. In the afternoon, breakout sessions allowed parents to choose and explore topics most relevant to their needs, including conflict resolution, social media and screen time, physical and emotional well-being, and special education supports. The events concluded with a reflection and commitment circle, a raffle, and gift bags for parents.
Collaborative Efforts
VIDE planned and hosted the parent retreats with support from various partners. The Islands Comprehensive Center assisted with logistics, agenda creation, scheduling and communications, and helped to ensure the event was outcome driven and infused with evidence–based practices pertaining to family engagement and adult learning. Media One was responsible for event photos and videos, and Ban Design developed the brand strategy and marketing materials and provided onsite operational support.
Parent Feedback
Parents who attended the retreats shared positive feedback about their experiences. On a post-event survey, 90% of the 55 respondents across the two retreats agreed that they were satisfied with the event, 89% reported that the retreat was high quality, and 90% agreed that they can use the information they learned at the event.
Parent attendees commented:
First of all, let me just say thank you for having this…It just made us as parents understand that we matter. And I think that’s one of the thing that as parents, we need to recognize and we need to be reminded.
Today was great. I enjoyed the environment, the ambience.
There’s a lot that we battle with, we tackle at the same time, and it’s good to take a step back and just kind of regroup and reflect on how we’re doing and ways that we could do better, ways that we could more engage in our kids’ life.
All parents should be here. This is an amazing experience at the Westin Hotel. The information that has been provided has been top notch.
Looking Forward
VIDE plans to build on the successful engagement during these events, incorporating feedback from attendees into future activities and planning. Additionally, VIDE and the Islands Comprehensive Center have developed a Parent Retreat Toolkit informed by the design, implementation and follow-up from these events. The toolkit provides practical guidance for planning and facilitating high-quality, evidence-based parent retreats. Stay tuned for the toolkit and more at: https://www.vide.vi/stayconnected
References
- Wriston, B., & Duchesneau, N. (2024). How student, family, and community engagement impacts students’ social, emotional, and academic development (SEAD). ERIC.
- Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL). (2023). Supporting parent and family engagement to enhance students’ academic, social, and emotional learning. https://casel.org/policy-brief-fce-2023/
- Escol, E. M., & Alcopra, A. R. (2024). Parental involvement and learners’ academic performance. International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Analysis.
- Weiss HB, Lopez ME & Caspe M.(2018). Joining Together to Create a Bold Vision for Next Generation Family Engagement: Engaging Families to Transform Education. Global Family Research Project.
- Alliance for Excellent Education. (2016). Four elements for creating a positive learning environment. https://all4ed.org/blog/four-elements-for-creating-a-positive-learning-environment/
- Grant, K.B., & Ray, J. (2019). Home, school, and community collaboration: Culturally responsive family engagement. 4th ed. SAGE Publications.